This disclosure relates generally to social networking systems, and in particular to identifying advertisement content eligible for presentation to a social networking system user.
A social networking system allows users to connect to and to communicate with other users of the social networking system. Users create profiles on a social networking system that are tied to their identities and include information about the users, such as interests and demographic information. The users may be individuals or entities such as corporations or charities. Creating and maintaining a user profile on a social networking system allows a user to easily exchange information with other social networking system users.
Many social networking systems enforce terms of service limiting creation of user profiles to users having characteristics satisfying the terms of service. For example, terms of service limit creation of a user profile to users indicating they have at least a minimum age. As a specific example, a social networking system limits creation of a user profile to users that are at least 13 years old. This prevents users under 13 years old from creating a user profile maintained by the social networking system, which in turn prevents those users from exchanging content through the social networking system.
A conventional social networking system also allows a user to associate users with content maintained by the social networking system by associating metadata with content identifying users associated with the content. For example, a social networking system associates one or more tags with an image, or other content item, to identify users associated with the image or other content item. A user may associate an additional user with content by selecting the content via the social networking system and specifying an identifier associated with the additional user. When an additional user is associated with content, the content is associated with the additional user's user profile and is presented along with other information associated with the additional user. However, in conventional social networking systems, it is difficult to associate entities that are not users of the social networking system with content maintained by the social networking system. For example, if a social networking system requires an entity (e.g., a user) being associated with content to approve of the association, the user is unable to receive a request to approve the association if the entity is not a user of the social networking system.
However, users of a social networking system often seek to share content via the social networking system about entities that are unable to maintain a user profile on the social networking system, such as children less than a threshold age or pets. Often, a user associates itself with content about an entity unable to maintain a user profile on the social networking system to distribute the content to other social networking system users. However, because this content is associated with the user rather than the entity to which the content pertains, subsequent retrieval and association of the content with the entity difficult, and social networking system users are unable to establish connections with the entity to which the content pertains.